The Butterfly Garden

My Kindle Reviews will consist of:

Kindle Lending Library

Kindle Unlimited

Kindle First

Freebies

*Book source ~ Kindle First

The Butterfly Garden

The Collector, #1

Dot Hutchison

1 June 2016

Suspense | Horror | Crime

288 Pages

My Rating ~ 5 bites

A fine upstanding citizen who has a twisted dark side kidnaps and ultimately murders the beautiful young women he targets. The Gardener, as he is known to his victims, cares for them and says he is preserving their beauty and doesn’t understand why they aren’t more grateful. When disaster strikes his “butterfly” garden it’s left to Maya to tell their tale to the FBI. But Maya has secrets of her own.  Will Agents Hanoverian and Eddison get the truth from Maya?

This is one dark and twisted tale of a very sick man and his even sicker son. The women he kidnaps are around 16 yrs old, so beware triggers to kidnapping, rape, mutilation and murder even though the story itself isn’t as graphic as it could be. Thank goodness. The story is told mostly from Maya’s POV (with Hanoverian switching occasionally) after the women have been finally rescued and she narrates her tale with caginess, sarcastic humor, and intelligence. Her backstory (which comes through in flashbacks as she parses out the story of the Butterflies) is heartbreaking and yet inspiring. She is tough and has long since lost any vulnerability, so she adapts to her new situation with The Gardener better than most. That’s not to say it doesn’t affect her because it does, but Maya has long been a survivor. I can’t tell you how much I love and hate this story. It’s compelling to be sure. I couldn’t stop turning the pages to see what Maya would reveal next. But it’s sick, sick, sick. The Gardener and his son? Omfg. *shudder* The ending seems a bit of a reach with Sophia’s story, but overall I forgive it because the book is just that good.

This is the first book I’ve read by Dot Hutchison, but if this is an example of her writing then she will be added to my Favorite Authors list. I’m definitely looking into her other books.